What Makes Us Human?

So I was having an online discussion with my younger brother a little more than a week ago about abortion. Being a devout and pro-life Catholic he held the opinion that life starts at conception, that it a fertilized egg is human and should be treated as human because it is a unique life different than the host parent. I have also been reading bio-ethics and many different places on the debate and they all seem to revolve around trying to justify scientifically what I can best describe as trying to answer the question, "when is an embryo tantamount to a human being?"

Of course, that one question gave way to the larger question, "What makes us human?" Where do we define the limits of humanity? Is it strictly in a biological sense as in form, shape, and structure? Is it in potential in the case of infants? Is it in behavior; could someone act in a way that they are no longer considered, if even for a moment, a human? Is it in ability whether physical or mental? Is humanity a transitive property; in other words, is it a label that can be taken away or does it last regardless once it has been gained? Are their varying degrees of humanity where a person could be considered "more human" than someone else?

Sure, there's no simple answer. Many different answers means many different answers, not no answer. Society arrives at a consensus of sorts in the form of law, but that can shift as society does. It's not a factual question, IMO, it's a judgment. There are biological facts that are indisputable, obviously, but value-judgments are not factual issues.

Abortion as a form of birth control is wrong and should be illegal. If there is a valid medical reason for an abortion, thin it should be permitted. Also I think a woman should have a choice to carry a child which is the result of rape or incest.

One can hardly point to a single aspect and say, "There - THAT's the thing that makes us Human!" It's more like a mosaic, a jigsaw puzzle, from which sociopaths have a piece missing.

One of those pieces (see how nicely I segued into this, without facing accusation of hi-jacking the thread?), is that we tend to enjoy observing nudity, and the Religious Right, during Little GW's administration, used the FCC to levy heavy fines against TV networks that allow onscreen nudity, such as we may remember from such shows as "NYPD Blue," and while I'm no aficionado of Dennis Franz's butt, I resent any infringement on his right to show it - I can always close my eyes. Well, today, Big Johnny Roberts and the Supremes overturned the FCC reg banning brief TV nudity, so it looks like we just got back one of those pieces of the puzzle that makes us human, the right to glimpse a little boob and bum. Can I get a Hallelujah!?

I fear that this discussion is one of those best suited to long, lazy Sunday afternoons, with a lot of good weed available. I would not want to try to give an answer to this question without plenty of chemical stimulation and also social stimulation.

Not that this question is not worth asking, but, it is, in my opinion, almost impossible of useful answer. I, personally, do not believe there is any one or any set of characteristics, which taken in isolation, can be called the key to understanding humanity.

To contradict myself flagrantly, I think if there is anything which can be said to identify us as human, it may be our sense of humor.

To get back onto ground where I am more comfortable, sarcasm, " What is it which makes a ham sandwich a ham sandwich? Is it the rye bread? Is it the mustard? Is it the smithfield ham? Or, is it some hidden unknowable essence?"

Between 1929 and 1974, North Carolina alone forcibly sterilized about 7,600 people whom the state deemed "feeble-minded" or otherwise undesirable. Many were poor black women.People as young as 10 were sterilized, in some cases for not getting along with schoolmates, or for being promiscuous. Although officials obtained consent from patients or their guardians, many did not understand what they were signing.One of the most outspoken victims, Elaine Riddick of Atlanta, has said she was raped and then sterilized after giving birth to a son when she was 14.Native Americans, as well as Afro-American women, were sterilized against their will in many states, often without their knowledge, while they were in a hospital for other reasons. Some sterilizations also took place in prisons and other penal institutions, targeting criminality, but they were in the relative minority. In the end, over 65,000 individuals were sterilized in 33 states under state compulsory sterilization programs in the United States.

Very similar outrages were carried out against Native Australian girls in Australia into the 21st century. I don't know if it has stopped entirely, but it went on much longer than anything like it went on in the U.S.

RE: the Australian eugenics problem, yes, that was (but no longer is) true. A friend from Australia spoke of this to me quite some time ago.

The fact that you have typed, "List" above, leads me to believe you consider this to be the list I asked for of, "women who have been jailed for having sex without birth control and those who have been subjected to tubal ligations for...bearing children...."

You're trying to equate a racially related eugenics program, designed by a bunch of White Supremacists, as being the list I mentioned - the issue in the cases you and Blaine cited had to do with preventing the continuation of a race, not as a punishment for sexual behavior.